But food CAN be an addiction, the same way alcohol, cigarettes and drugs are.
The big difference is we HAVE to eat to survive. You can quit drugs, smoking, drinking alcohol, there is no actual need for those things, but if you don't eat, you will die.
If an alcoholic HAD to have some alcohol every day, or a smoker HAD to have one cigarette a day, or someone had to shoot up smack etc, in order to actually survive, that one drink, one cigarette etc, would set off the cravings, the need for more, and so the cycle goes on. Asking someone who has an actual addiction to food (usually sugar) to have to eat some and not spiral out of control, is unreasonable and impossible. Food addiction is as much of an illness as alcoholism, but there is no way of just not having it. Way way WAY too many people look at every fat person and just think they're lazy and greedy, but there are so many illnesses that can make someone fat. Thyroid issues, diabetes, insulin resistance, PCOS, are just the tip of the ice berg, and plenty of medications for other illnesses cause unwanted weight gain, then theres the actual eating dosirders like compulsive overeating, binge eating, not every eating disorder is about starving yourself and being skinny, it has both extremes. But again, anorexia and bulimia get sympathy, it's an illness etc, but people who compulsively eat or binge eat get looked at and treated with disgust as some big greedy glutton who should control themselves.
Exercise also isn't possible for everyone, due to physical and/or mental health problems and disability.
I have OCD, PCOS and an underactive thyroid. I also have been diagnosed with cumpulsive over eating. I eat when im not hungry, when im so full i fell sick, even foods i don't like, because i feel compelled to eat. I don't want to eat, but its almost like im a puppet and i can't stop myself. Bladder issues mean i cant be stood up for very long to be able to exercise or i get the sudden urge to wee and the OCD means it takes an hour for me to go to the toilet, the options are be in the loo constantly for an hour at a time, wet myself, or have to remain sitting/lying down.
I have a very frustrating, boring, unfulfilling life with many physical and mental health problems. The last thing i need is to be judged and ridiculed by strangers about being "obese". I know i am, but there is very little i cna do with my health situation to change it.